


Am I Transmitting; Is Anyone Listening?

by orphan_account



Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén
Genre: M/M, feeling mighty soft over steelstep today., sidestep is my own named Dante Amane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 20:31:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20395729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: For some sick reason, Dante wants Chen to trust him. There’s no malicious thoughts in his wants, no ounce of Oracle sprinkled in his intentions. He just wants to know that Chen is there. It’s not about knowing Marshal Steel, but everything about Wei Chen.He trusts Chen.





	Am I Transmitting; Is Anyone Listening?

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Contact by Trocadero

“Can you stop that?” Dante scowls, wringing his hands. He’s been trying to actively avoid hearing Steel’s thoughts for the past hour, unsure if they’re in the middle of some sort of test or fight or- Steel is hard to read when you don’t have direct access to his emotions.

“Stop what?” He asks so innocently, and it makes his blood boil, albeit small. Dante sighs, exasperated and tired - so so tired. Instead of elevating voices and raised fists, Dante just leans into Steel’s side on the dog park bench, drawing his legs up to curl into his side.

“You’re broadcasting,” Dante supplies by way of answer. “You always do this,” Dante relents, and then tacks on, “I can't tell if you don't know how to be quiet, or if you’re trying to test me.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but Steel isn’t smiling. He’s tense for a moment, but then relaxes. 

“You aren’t reading them,” He says, and it’s some sort of defeat- maybe a challenge or relief, but it’s there, hidden laced in his words. Dante scoffs, and there’s a fight raging under his skin. He ignores it. He doesn’t want to fight with Steel. Not today. Not in any sense of the word.

“Of course not,” Dante chooses to say instead of the insult packed away at the tip of his tongue. He always thinks twice, when Steel is with him- sheds the anger and the hurt and just  _ is,  _ all tired defeat and painstakingly soft voice. 

With Ortega, Dante yells. He  _ screams. _ They fight and Dante cries and Ortega looks so very old, so very broken. Ortega likes to bring up the funeral alot - likes to bring up the past. It just makes his ears ring and his vision blur, how so very intertwined they once were. Ortega is his best friend and his greatest enemy- There’s so much  _ history  _ there, so much to unpack, so much of each other and so many broken pieces it’s both hauntingly obvious and terrifyingly hard to find where one starts and the other ends.

It’s different, somehow, with Chen. He knows Dante. Or, at least, knew  _ of  _ him. They worked together, and they bantered through grimaces and tight-lipped smiles. Steel knew Sidestep and Chen knew  _ Dante _ , and he didn’t trust either of them. It was the telepathy, he said, but Dante thinks maybe it was something in his eyes. Steel never made eye contact- always looked at his forehead, his nose, his hands. Now Steel knows Oracle, and he does not trust them, either and yet.

It feels like maybe he's finally starting to trust  _ Dante _ , and what a cruel twist of fate that is. It should be hilarious, but it just makes him feel worse- feel lonely.

For some sick reason, Dante  _ wants _ Chen to trust him. There’s no malicious thoughts in his wants, no ounce of Oracle sprinkled in his intentions. He just wants to know that Chen is  _ there _ . It’s not about knowing Marshal Steel, but everything about Wei Chen.

_ He _ trusts Chen.

It’s dumb.

It’s the same trust he had with Ortega, someone to listen and have your back. Same, but different- It’s softer, somehow. It feels like there’s been a shift. During his Sidestep days, Dante and Chen were at each other’s throats- They’d banter for the cameras, And they were usually civil, but malice served as an undercurrent to the basis of a relationship founded on mutual distrust. Ortega was everything good- smiles and hands braiding too-short hair, partners in all sense of the word.

Now Ortega seems like a ghost. He makes Dante sad, makes him think of everything that could have been and everything before. Ortega seems to  _ want  _ Before, and Dante can’t do that. They’ve changed too much.

But Steel… Steel will always be Steel. Weathered only by time and a sad sort of heartbreak he has always carried yet never really shown. Steel doesn’t treat him like he’s still Sidestep- like he’s a telepath, maybe, like they had known each other once so very long ago, but not like he’s Sidestep. Not anymore.

He trusts him to know his hands will not hurt him, to know that his favorite thing in the world is Spoon, to know that he cradles his face so gently- the same way he imagines he cradled that puppy so so long ago. 

Dante trusts him to be  _ gentle _ with his life. His heart. It started with an “are you okay?” In a dog park, with tired eyes and scarred cheekbones and soft whispers. 

“Of course,” Dante repeats, hand trailing down until his fingers find Chen’s own, thumb rubbing soft admissions across metal knuckles. Maybe one day, Dante would trust him with the tattoos. Would Chen run? Would he become Steel? He doesn’t know if he could stand Chen hating him- Steel, maybe. Never Chen. Never the man who watches Spoon run with a starlight in the creases of his smiling eyes. “I’d never hurt you.”

It’s a confession- more then Chen may ever know. It’s an admission. A breaking. ‘I’ means  _ Dante,  _ means Sidestep and Oracle and Adonis and Cuckoo. I is everyone Dante has been, or ever will be.

It means I could never bear to hurt you- Could never look at you and know it was me who did it. A realization that he is not as broken as he thinks- not as angry. Not to Chen.

Chen squeezes his hand. He doesn’t say anything, but he’s looking at Dante with his starlight-eyes. 

“I know,” Chen says, and for the first time, Dante believes him. 


End file.
